Marks & Spencer launches clothing range for children with disabilities

Marks & Spencer have launched an ‘easy dressing’ clothing range for children with disabilities, in what’s thought to be a first for the UK high street.

The process of navigating walking frames and more to get dressed for the day can be fraught with difficulty for parents of children with special needs.

With this in mind, the high street store has designed a range that includes discreet pockets for feeding tubes, clothes with extra space for casts and hidden care labels to avoid irritating sensitive skin.

Announcing the news on its Facebook page, the company wrote: ‘We’ve created a special range of easy dressing clothes for children who need extra help. From all-in-ones that allow for a cast (for hip dysplasia) to tees and dresses with discreet pockets for feeding tubes, to clothes that are super-gentle on sensitive skin; we’ve made dressing quick, comfortable and practical.’

We’ve created a special range of easy dressing clothes for children who need extra help. From all-in-ones that allow for…

The range includes the easy dressing frill top, easy dressing joggers, easy dressing jeggings, easy dressing coats and gilets and much more – with prices starting from as little as £3.50.

Rebecca Garner, kidswear designer at M&S who developed the range with buyer Emma Chang and technologist Charlotte Hunt, said: ‘We’ve absolutely loved working on this project and are proud that every product started from listening to mums and dads. Parents passionately told us that disabilities don’t define their children, so the adaptations shouldn’t define their clothes, it’s why all the products are inclusively designed and modelled closely on our main collection.’

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Continuing she added: ‘So whilst big sister might wear a dress with sequins, the little one who wants to match but has sensory needs will have a softer glitter. Offering great value has been a key consideration and parents purchasing Easy Dressing products will never pay more.’

Parents and fans of the brand heaped praise on the range, with almost 3,000 comments on the above Facebook post.

One wrote: ‘Well done M&S, will you be bringing out an adults range too’

While another added: ‘About time this was taken on boars [sic] by a big company.’